


Two Eyes and a Mouth that Still Smiles

by szikra



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Possibly Pre-Slash, Pre-Slash, can be read as a pre-slash fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 04:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1291744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/szikra/pseuds/szikra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico's alone-time in the woods is interrupted by Ethan, who wants to run away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Eyes and a Mouth that Still Smiles

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta-ed.

Other people said the woods were scary but Nico liked sneaking out and sitting in the dark. Nothing has ever went close to him, not even the nymphs or the harpies that were patrolling outside. Maybe it was the darkness, which got thicker if he wanted, so thick that he couldn’t see at all, but still felt everything around him, the trees, and the small animals moving. That made everything leave him alone at the Fist of Zeus, where he was sitting, with a can of soda he got from Travis.

Then he felt someone coming.

‘Who is there?’ Nico asked, with his voice raised. He tried to not show how scared he got.

‘You can see here?’ the other asked. ‘Wait, you sound like the new kid. Nick. Is that you, Nick?’

‘Who are you?’ Nico shouted again. He stood up, and the hid the can behind his back.

‘Ethan. I live in the Hermes cabin, too.’

A slim boy’s figure appeared as Nico let the shadows dissolve. He was the Asian boy from the cabin he lived in.

‘My name is actually Nico di Angelo. I’m not American either’ Nico smiled at the older boy. ‘We moved here when we were little, so I started to pick up the language when I was around four.’

‘I’m Japanese-American.’ Ethan answered and he furrowed his black brows. ‘Why aren’t you in bed? Did no one tell you that the forest is dangerous?’

Nico shrugged.

‘I think the things lurking in the darkness are afraid. I don’t know why. They just keep their distance. And you? You like the night too, right?’

Ethan sat down next to Nico on the rock. Nico offered him a sip of his soda, and it made Ethan smile.

‘You are a little troublemaker, aren’t you?’ he asked before he drank from the sweet drink. ‘Thanks. You are not claimed either, are you?’

Nico shook his head, his hair was flying around his ears. ‘Bianca wasn’t claimed either, but she joined the Hunters and she’s on a quest now.’ The little boy sighed. ‘I wish I was big and trained enough to go on a quest. Like Percy.’

‘Jackson?’ Ethan looked surprised, but the question made Nico’s face light up with happiness.

‘Yes! I saw him, I saw him fight a chimera! A real chimera! He got his sword, called Riptide and he was so brave, he saved me and my sister, Bianca! His friend got lost though. But he promised me to look after Bianca. He will save her again. Have you seen him fight? He is so brave! He’s a little funny though. Sometimes he looks like he’s thinking about too many things at once. What? Did I say something funny?’

Ethan was smiling widely, and shook his head. ‘Nothing. Annabeth calls Jackson seaweed brain, you know.’

‘That’s not very nice from her.’

‘They are friends. She’s teasing him.’

‘Oh.’ Nico took a sip from the can. ‘You never told me why are you taking a late night walk.’

Ethan scanned him.

‘I can tell you if you won’t tell anyone.’ Nico nodded, he scrunched his nose, he was concentrating so hard on Ethan. ‘I’m running away.’ Nico’s eyes widened and he was about to ask something, his arms started a wide move with the can in his hands, but Ethan interrupted him before Nico could say a word. ‘I saw a dream, okay? My mom never claimed me, but she talked to me tonight. She promised me something, so I’ll go and prove myself to her. She will make me important. Finally, I’ll be important.’

Ethan’s voice was bitter, and Nico carefully touched his elbow. ‘I’m sure you are important to someone.’ Nico said cautiously.

‘You are sure?’ Ethan laughed without any humor. ‘You don’t know who is your godly parent, and your sister left you here, in an overcrowded cabin, so no one will really pay attention to you. What do you know about feeling recognized, again?’

Nico’s cheeks got red from embarrassment.

‘Percy promised me to look for Bianca. Bianca will come back, and visit me, whenever she can, okay? And I’ll make friends. Do you like Mythomagic?’

Ethan sighed. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I won’t stay to befriend you, Nico. I finally got my chance, I have to seize it.’

Nico pouted, and he drew his legs up to his chest, his feet laying on the rock.

‘Maybe Bianca joined the Hunters because of that, too. They made her feel important.’

Ethan wanted to place his arms around the boy, but it felt too intimate, so he only rubbed his back. ‘You miss her, right?’

‘Yeah. But Percy will bring her back. He promised.’

‘You really trust Jackson, don’t you?’

Nico’s cheeks got a little red again.

‘He’s great. He is so cool. Like…’ His hands were in the air, looking for words. ‘Like when you put a seashell to your ear, and you know that you will hear the ocean echoing in it. You just know that it will happen every time. And I think Percy Jackson keeps his word, like that, every time, no matter what. He saved us already. He will get Annabeth back, and protect Bianca.’

Ethan was smiling again, and he couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself.

‘Got a little crush there, Nico?’

For his biggest surprise, Nico giggled up. ‘Silly. Boys don’t have crushes on boys! No, boys…’

‘Boys can absolutely get crushes on boys’ Ethan interrupted. ‘It’s the twenty-first century.’

‘Where do you get these ideas? It’s nineteen-forty-two! I’d be sooo old, if it was…’

‘What?! Nico, I’m pretty sure it’s two-thousand-seven.’

Nico was staring at him. ‘That cannot be.’

‘Mythomagic was released in two-thousand-four. You can check it on any box, I’m sure, because when it got out, I bought a deck, but I knew about monsters, so it wasn’t that interesting for me. You can have it, if you want, it’s actually the Africanus Extreme expansion deck… Maybe that was the reason I didn’t really enjoy it. It’s under my matrass if you want it, in the cabin.’

Nico got pale and his eyes widened.

‘I thought… I thought… I don’t even remember my life before the hotel. Is it really?’ He had a box of the cards in his pocket, and he almost tore it as he got it out. The little number seemed to turn his word around, and his eyes were wet as he looked up to Ethan. ‘You said it’s two-thousand-seven, right? I missed… sixty-five years, then. How is that possible? I should be dead!’

Ethan shrugged. He wished he could comfort Nico, who was definitely struggling with the truth. ‘Maybe… you know, there are places, where the time goes differently. Like in the underworld. Maybe you were stuck at a place like that.’

Nico breathed in deeply. ‘That… that makes sense. Wow! Am I like, like, a time traveler, then? And Bianca too! Wow!’

Ethan took the liberty to tousle Nico’s dark, soft hair with his fingers. It was amazing how this little boy recovered from this shock. ‘Yes, you are.’ he smiled.

‘Cool! I can’t wait to Percy come back with Bianca, I’ll tell her, she will love it!’

‘So you can’t wait to Percy to come back?’ Ethan winked at him with his left eye, and it made Nico’s cheeks pink again. ‘It’s okay. There are boys who fall in love with boys.’

‘I’m not in love with him!’ Nico snapped.

‘Okay! I’m not saying you are. But it might happen that you are. No biggie. It’s called homosexuality.’

That word made Nico blush deeper. He remembered the word sexuality from Bianca’s biology book, from the chapter with the weird drawings of naked people and it was both really interesting and disgusting for Nico.

‘Do you fall in love with boys, then?’ he asked Ethan after a big yawn.

‘Sometimes.’ Ethan shrugged. ‘It’s perfectly normal. Just most people don’t talk about it and others don’t like gay people at all. Uhm. People who like the same sex.’ he explained to Nico. ‘So be careful who you mention your boy-crushes.’

‘I don’t have crushes on boys.’

Ethan rolled his eyes, he bit his tongue to not tell Nico that ‘the lady doth protest too much’. He started to like the boy, and he didn’t want to hurt him, even if probably this was their first and last meeting. ‘Whatever. Just don’t blush every time you say his name.’

‘I don’t…’

‘I’m teasing you’ Ethan smiled.

‘Oh!’ Nico’s face softened, his mouth formed a wide grin. ‘Are we friends then?’

‘Yes.’ Ethan offered Nico his hand and the boy took it, his grip was soft but enthusiastic. ‘You should go back to bed, Nico.’ Ethan told him after Nico took his hand away to cover his yawning mouth.

‘Are you going? To find your mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good luck, Ethan.’

‘Take care, Nico.’

Nico jumped down of the rocks and took some steps toward the camp. He looked back to take a last moment of Ethan, but the older boy was gone, he had completely disappeared, as if the shadows consumed him.

Nico furrowed his brows. He wasn’t sure he could go to sleep after a talk like this. He just started to like Ethan, although not in the sense he talked about liking boys. But Ethan practically gave him a new deck of cards and he told him he is a time-traveler, and that… maybe. If he were in love with Percy Jackson, which was a ridiculous idea, even if he got even more excited about seeing Percy again than the new deck, so if he were in love with him… that would be okay.

His legs took him to the cabin on their own, and sleep covered his eyes before he could cover himself.


End file.
